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In Korean culture, the 1st birthday (dohl) is one of the biggest milestones in a person’s life. It’s probably most akin to the American Sweet 16 but I don’t even know if those two comparisons are fair because I know a lot of American kids who don’t really get a big blowout for their 16th birthday but if you’re Korean, and you’re turning 1 … trust me, it’s going to be an event.

If you know me in real life, then you know one thing about me and it’s that I really love to throw a good party. I think the love first formed when I was planning for E’s 1st birthday party. I threw her dohl at our local community center and considering that my husband was still in law school at the time and we had a pretty tight budget (aka, we had no money), I think I pulled together a pretty nice event. Also, I could be wrong but I don’t think Pinterest was really a “thing” back then the way that it is now so I didn’t have much to go off of in terms of inspiration. There were a few Korean blogs that I found at the time with photos of dohls and that’s what I followed.

When D’s dohl rolled around, we had just moved into a new home a few months prior and I was overwhelmed with adjusting to E’s new therapy schedule. I decided to throw his dohl at our house/backyard and give it a more “homey” feel. I really enjoyed this dohl as it felt comfortable and easy but it was still stressful trying to coordinate all the day-of details by myself (aka, I didn’t sleep the week leading up to the party and ran around like a crazy chicken on the morning of).

When baby A’s turn finally came, I already knew – I love planning parties but don’t really love the stress that comes with pulling everything together. I wanted to find a professional event planner who would take my crazy vision and run with it, and most of all I wanted to show up at the birthday party calm & relaxed and ready to enjoy the day. Considering the kind of crazy labor and postpartum recovery I had with her, I also felt a litttttttle bit like I’d earned a big party to celebrate making it through the first year of A’s life. Hubby was quick to agree with me so I got started right away in trying to find my right hand “man” to help me bring to life THE DOHL OF MY DREAMS.

I started planning in September … mind you, A’s birthday is in April so that is more than 6+ months ahead of time. What’s even crazier is that a few of the event planners I contacted were already booked for the weekend I had in mind! Part of that might have been because most of the planners I found and liked were wedding planners as well and weddings do get planned away in advance. Thankfully, I stumbled across Jessica at Blushing Joy Events and I was able to lock down the date I wanted in the spring.

My “theme” for the event was that I wanted it to be floral, whimsical, but still kid-friendly. I wanted a Pinterest-worthy dohl basically (LOL) and I have to say … Jessica blew my mind away!

Here’s where I stop writing and just let you take a look at the pictures so you can see for yourselves.

Venue: Lafayette Park Hotel

Planning: Blushing Joy Events

Photography: Nathalie Cheng Photography

Paper Goods/Signage: Kelly Design Co

Desserts: Etta Avenue Cakes

Florals: Flower Story Gal

Rentals: Julia’s Cake Stand Rentals, Pleasanton Rentals, The Chiavari Guys, Seventh Heaven Vintage Rentals

I think the guests had a lot of fun with the “flower market” activity. I didn’t post too many pictures of my guests just because I don’t know if they’d want their pictures on my blog but there was many a bouquet made and taken home this day 🙂

Ugh, do you SEE the gold drip detail on these cakes? Perfection. Vicky at Etta Avenue Cakes killed it.

These Korean rice cakes are a traditional part of the “dessert table” at a Korean 1st birthday. It’s tradition that my godmother provide the rice cakes for my kids’ dohls; I’m so thankful for her because I wouldn’t know where to get these without her help lol!

We had a TON of little kids at the party (duh, it’s a 1st birthday) so I assembled these little pails of goodies to keep them busy.

The “hanbok” is the traditional Korean dress and these custom cookies were made by Etta Avenue Cakes and given out as party favors. They tasted UH-MAYZING too!

I mean, seriously? These flowers! All the heart eyes.

What would be a dohl without the “dohljabi” – the traditional game played with the birthday boy/girl where s/he picks out an object signifying their future. Averie picked the ball 😉

Congratulations if you made it to bottom of this post (HAH!). This is where I have to put a little side note just because I am human (and slightly embarrassed) and I think it’s a noticeable enough difference that I need to point it out (my husband even brought it up to me). So, these pictures were taken before I lost all the baby weight so I obviously look chubbier. That’s all 🙂

I lost the rest of the baby weight this summer, after Averie’s birthday. I had quite a bit to lose … I usually have a hard time shedding baby weight until after I’ve weaned my kids and am done with breastfeeding. I’m not a big person to begin with so even 5 lbs can make a big difference and I can guarantee you, I had more than 5 lbs to lose at the time of her birthday 😉